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“If you marry her, I won’t just restore the funding. I will quintuple it. I will give it more money than it will ever be able to spend.”
My jaw drops. I’m enraged at the manipulation. But I also think about everything we could do with that money.
The King smiles. “You’re coming around to it. I can tell.”
“No. I’m not.” I don’t know if this is the truth or just my stubbornness talking.
“Think of World Clinic.”
There’s the trump card. Maybe the only reason I'm still here.
“Fine. I'll think about it. But I can't promise.”
“Good. That’s my boy.”
I wish him well, promise to check up on him later, and leave.
I drive back home in a snit. Of course, the right answer is to not entertain this crazy idea. But the money is hard to pass up. Every last patient and victim needs the funding from the crown. The last thing we need right now is to be cut off and scrambling for new funders.
And then there’s my attraction to her. I wish there weren’t any chemistry, because then it would be so easy not to give it another thought.
I can’t stop thinking about the way she looked in her skirt and flowy top. It was modest, but her curves were still on display, and they drove me wild.
Finally I turn off the light and fall onto the cool pillow ready for some rest. But eyes wide or shut, all I see is her.
“Why can’t I get this woman out of my head? Maybe Dad has a point.”
I toss and turn, unable to fall asleep. I keep seeing her image. But being married to her? By the same token, she’s keeping me up at night.
Besides, Dad said if I was really miserable, I could end things after a year. I think of the clients I help overseas and what they have to deal with in a year. Living with a beautiful woman who I’ve known for ages hardly seems comparable to anything they’ve suffered.
But just knowing that my problems are easier than others’ doesn’t mean they don’t exist. And I don’t know what’s the biggest problem – this decision, or getting the mental images of Ellie out of my thoughts.
8
ELLIE
“Are we done? Or is there something else?” I ask the doctor. Five shaky fingers move from the throbbing injection site on my lower abdomen, to fiddle with my watch. I try hard to steady my equally shaky voice.
My skin can still feel the tingles from the needle prick.
The doctor looks up from the chart he’s been eyeing a tad too long. “We’ll need you back here in two days’ time, as I'm sure the nurse explained, but for now you're free to go.” He punctuates the terse message with a brief smile and walks out with my chart.
My heart flutters when the door shuts behind him, and I allow my body to exhale and shiver. I lie down on the clinic bed in an attempt to calm down.
“So this is it,” I tell the empty room.
A tornado of anxiety rushes through my gut for the umpteenth time today. I'm only steps away from the procedure, and ‘what ifs’ keep popping up in my head.
“Living the process is nothing like studying and writing about it. Or even witnessing it. At all.”
I rise up, gather my things, and exit. Out in broad daylight, I try to clear the anxiety and think of other things. But my brain keeps coming back to the same conundrum of will it or won't it work. My stomach clenches as I walk to my car.
I'm caught up in my own thoughts and unaware of my surroundings when I almost trip over the curb. My eyes fly around the parking lot in hopes that nobody saw me almost trip.
I do a double take. My heart drops. It’s the last person I'd want to be there.
Cedrick? He looks even better than he did when I last saw him two days ago. There's something about a man in formal wear. Especially this man, it seems. His perfectly tailored suit looks like it was made for him, and then I realize it probably was.
